A conventional speech recognition apparatus can support or be used in multiple languages. Here, one of the languages needs to be selected from the multiple languages as an active language. A speech recognition can be then started for the selected language as the active language. Further, selecting the active language may be performed by speech input. For instance, suppose a case that English is designated as a present active language and the active language is going to be changed from English to Japanese. In this case, uttering an English speech is required for changing the active language from English to Japanese. This may prevent language selection by a user who cannot speak English. Further, an indefinite pronunciation in an English speech by a user who cannot ordinarily speak English may cause a mis-recognition, which makes it difficult to change the active language from English to Japanese.                Patent document 1 discloses a technology to solve such disadvantage. This technology includes a memory device for memorizing multiple language-specific dictionaries (Japanese, English, and German dictionaries). This memory device memorizes, with respect to each language-specific dictionary, recognition target words including (i) speech commands for operating a navigation system and (ii) language identification words for determining which language an inputted speech belongs to. Based on a result from the speech recognition for the inputted speech, language-specific dictionaries are switched therebetween to thereby retrieve a recognition target word matching the inputted speech.        Patent document 1: JP-A-2001-83991        
In the above technology, the individual language-specific dictionaries stored in the memory device needs to be switched in series to retrieve a recognition target word matching the inputted speech, depending on the language of the inputted speech. For instance, a certain language may need to wait until all the language-specific dictionaries other than that of the certain language are thoroughly searched. Further, when the greater number of language-specific dictionaries are supported or included in the memory device, the longer retrieval time are consumed.